“The fact that goals may be dependent for their force on other more distant ends leads to the arrangement of these goals in a hierarchy - each level to be considered as an end relative to the levels below it and as a mean to the levels above it.”

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 62.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The fact that goals may be dependent for their force on other more distant ends leads to the arrangement of these goals…" by Herbert A. Simon?
Herbert A. Simon photo
Herbert A. Simon 58
American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and p… 1916–2001

Related quotes

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“Below Every Tangled Hierarchy Lies An Inviolate Level”

Source: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Chapter 20: "Strange Loops Or Tangled Heirarchies"

Kurt Lewin photo

“A successful individual typically sets his next goal somewhat but not too much above his last achievement. In this way he steadily raises his level of aspiration… The unsuccessful individual on the other hand, tends to show one of two reactions: he sets his goal very low, frequently below his past achievement… or he sets his goals far above his abilities.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1940s, Resolving social conflicts; selected papers on group dynamics, 1948, p. 133 as cited in: Roger Dale, Madeleine MacDonald, Geoff Esland (1976) Schooling & Capitalism: A Sociological Reader. p. 111.

George Eliot photo
Joyce Brothers photo

“Trust your hunches… Hunches are usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

As quoted in Words of Wisdom : More Good Advice (1990) edited by William Safire and Leonard Safir, p. 199
Variant: Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.
Trust your hunches. Hunches are usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level. But be warned, don't confuse hunches with wishful thinking.
Context: Trust your hunches... Hunches are usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level. Warning! Do not confuse your hunches with wishful thinking. This is the road to disaster.

“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Source: The Peter Principle (1969), p. 25: Statement of the Peter Principle

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal,  and yet if  a melody has not  reached its end, it has not reached its goal.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Variant: The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.

Marvin Minsky photo

Related topics